Leaders are struggling to deal with new requirements, and this could put organisations at risk. Leaders and leadership are still in stormy seas. I don’t think most leaders are yet aware of the rapidly changing demands they will encounter, and that concerns me.
I recently read a Deloitte study that found that 80% of respondents believed leaders today faced unique and new requirements. It found that 80% of respondents believe leadership is among the highest priorities for organisations, yet less than half were ready to meet the new requirements. I found this shocking until I considered what I was seeing and hearing from other top leaders.
I then considered what I was hearing from my managers and leaders, and those I worked with. Most had little idea or urgently needed help to deal with new demands (for which there were few online/in-person courses or experts). These included effectively helping burned-out team members, managing hybrid teams, reducing meetings while simultaneously increasing engagement, overcoming resistance to change in a virtual world, and more.
Like many senior leaders, I understood the big-picture business and strategic challenges my organisation was facing, but I hadn’t considered deeply the impact of the “simpler” day-to-day leadership issues had on my business. And research confirmed it. The lack of confidence of front-line leaders, and their awareness (or lack of it) of their own skills gaps, can be a real threat, to the point where it could derail our plans and ambitions.
I think senior leaders need to take a moment and consider not just what they need their leaders at all levels to do, but what has changed, and the help they need. Obvious changes include the emerging hybrid workplace, but that is accompanied by leaders needing to do more with less (meetings, time-intensive discussions, etc).
Frontline leaders need to review everything to see where improvements and efficiencies can be made. They need the skills to identify what can be shortened, improved or replaced, and where time and cost savings can be realised. Oh, and at the same time they need to find better ways to reconnect teams — that’s a huge problem.
Where should senior leaders start? By providing clear expectations and explicit help. Senior leaders need to help their frontline leaders see that it’s time to leave their comfort zone and embrace adaptability. This requires developing new skills and allowing people to try and fail.
Senior leaders need to make their leaders see that the critical skills required have shifted and will continue to do so in every industry — what got us here won’t get us there. Most importantly they need to create curiosity in their leaders and provide them with the skills to develop new solutions to answer the challenges and opportunities they discover.
These fundamental shifts and leadership skills gaps can only lead us to one conclusion. If leadership changes and the leadership skills required must change, then leadership development must change also.
Uncertainty continues to cloud nearly every aspect of our work. I believe senior leaders need to rethink how their organisations approach leadership development. There are some fundamental steps every organisation can begin with:
- Redefine what good leadership in your organisation looks like. For example, your people may need servants now, not heroes. In most industries, I see the archetype of the certain and directive leader no longer offers a meaningful model. Too much has changed, and too much is new. Leaders need to ask questions and explore and get ideas from their frontline people instead.
- Reimagine what leadership potential looks like. If the above is true now, it will be doubly so for the future. The critical leadership skills are shifting, and so must how we identify and groom future leadership talent. This means many leadership and talent development programmes are already pointing the wrong way and delivering the results that yesterday demanded. They need to change quickly.
- Make leadership development a part of everything. Development and work can no longer be separate. It just doesn’t make sense when every new day is a continuous learning opportunity. However, leaders must be made to see that the learning, as well as results, must be produced — and shared.
I believe there are baseline future skills that every leader needs, and I have talked about them before. The priorities and needs are determined by culture, industry and role. For example, sales leaders will need to go deeper into data and digital skills. Marketing and finance leaders need more creativity, but for different reasons.
For senior leaders and those who must develop all the organisation’s leaders, a mindset shift is the starting point:
- Reframe what leadership “learning” means, what should be done with it, and how it should happen.
- Believe in and support your leaders’ ability to learn.
- Ensure each leader’s learning is rooted in a personal “Why?”
- Develop and support personal learning journeys for leaders at all levels.
If you are not sure, start small. But do get started.
Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAC — Southeast Asia’s Lifelong Learning Center. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa. Talk to us about how SEAC can help your business during times of uncertainty at https://forms.gle/wf8upGdmwprxC6Ey9
